One of my neighbors is an egg bandit. I never would have imagined that a neighbor would steal eggs from another. It's a shocking thought, but true. I caught the knave in flagrante delicto.
Stepping out of my garage one fine spring morning, I found myself standing face to face with the culprit: Tom Turkey. You know, a gobbler. In his bill he held an egg, a very large egg. From whose nest did this feathered felon purloin his feast?
The yardbird quickly distanced himself by streaking across the street, all the while making furtive glances over his shoulder to assess if I was coming after his prize. I followed as quickly as I could, catching only a brief glimpse with my binoculars before falling too far behind to continue my pursuit. Wild Turkeys can run pretty fast, after all (upwards of 25 mph), and I’m no Road Runner.
Back at the house, I googled size and color of eggs for Wild Turkeys and Turkey Vultures, both ground nesting birds. What I thought I had seen certainly was large enough to fit the bill for either species. It was certainly no chicken egg.
The poacher could not have traveled far with his high protein, calcium rich meal. There has to be a nest nearby, I reasoned. I knocked on doors of a couple of nearby homes to see if anyone had observed nesting activity on their property. Nobody was home.
I know what I saw, or thought I saw, but there I was, stuck without proof positive. And who would believe my farfetched account? At least my wife believed me when I told her the story. She patiently listens to all my stories.
You know the saying that lightning never strikes twice in the same place? Well, it happened to me. The very next day, I came across another turkey in my front yard, this time a hen, also carrying what certainly looked like an egg in her bill.
I’m not making this up.
I had my camera in hand, so this time I hoped to obtain photographic proof of my sighting. All I had to do was follow the egg nabber. Easier said than done, of course, but I learned from my first encounter not to spook the perp.
The brazen bandita looked over her shoulder to see how far away I was as she sauntered across the street into an open field. She stopped, placed the object on the ground, and pecked at it several times. Huevos rancheros, it was not.
Wild Turkey with egg in bill?
I fired off a handful of shots, and was feeling confident about having captured some revealing images from afar. Computer time would reveal the facts.
The nest raider finished her meal and calmly walked away. I descended the slope to where she had been, looking for pieces of egg shell. But there were no shell fragments anywhere to be found. Walking in circles, I looked, and looked again. Whoa, did she swallow the whole egg, shell and all? I know I was looking in the right spot because I was standing where the grass was trampled.
Back at my computer, photographs appeared to show what I had suspected: a large egg held in the lower mandible of the bird. That said, appearances can be deceiving; just ask any crime investigator.
Wild mushroom
I began to have doubts. I can understand one species preying upon the eggs of another species, but an individual depredating the nest of one of its own kind? Turkey against turkey? I just wasn’t sure this behavior could happen.
The “eggs” I saw, it seemed after reflection, were more likely large mushrooms growing in the rich soil and dense, moist areas of grass and flowering plants on my property. Some of them, held by the stem and viewed from the broad side, did indeed resemble the rounded shape of a large egg. The color and texture, too, of the mushrooms (dappled with the golden pollen of surrounding Fiddleneck flowers) resembled photos of turkey eggs I found on the internet.
So mushrooms they were, I concluded. Accepting the new reality, and to assuage my disappointment at not having a sensational story to tell, I let my imagination run loose, giving it full rein. And wild it did run. To wit:
Maybe, just maybe, I envisioned, I could teach one of those turkeys to find truffles growing under my oak trees instead of mushrooms. Think of the possibilities: truffle oil from the oak woodland foothills of the Sierra where I live, south of Yosemite National Park, could be marketed as a high end speciality by Trader Joe’s; and the turkeys, they would work for bird feed.
Granted, these domestic truffles might not be as coveted as the celebrated French black truffle of the Périgord, but sacré bleu, they would be mine. And that, my friends, would make all the difference.
My imagination was really going far afield; I had to put a stop to its peregrination. At least I would now have a fun story to tell.
But wait. Don’t stop reading yet. My story is not over. I just had to be sure of one more thing.
Turkey ignoring mushroom in favor of sunflower seeds
I plucked one of those mushrooms out of the ground, and placed it in my front yard where birds forage daily, amidst a handful of black oil sunflower seeds. As they often do this time of year, Wild Turkeys came by that afternoon and ate the seeds. As for the mushroom, the turkeys didn’t even give it a peck or a poke. So I was wrong about turkeys eating mushrooms after all.
Incredibly, three days later, when I stepped outside to talk with my wife who was watering her native plant garden, lightning struck again. Right in front of my house, another turkey marched down the street with what was clearly an egg in her bill. She was close by, and I had my camera (I always have my camera; it’s like an appendage of my hand).
Wild Turkey consuming a stolen turkey egg
Size of Wild Turkey egg
The hen dropped the egg on the pavement. She picked up the half shells, dropped them a couple of times, and then simply walked away, leaving behind the broken pieces, which I collected and measured. This time I had proof positive of avian egg bandits on the run. No mushrooms here. Case closed.
One nagging question remained, though: from whose nest did these turkeys steal these eggs? A nest had to be close by, but where was it? I had to find out, and would not rest until I did.
Serendipitously, that very afternoon, while walking back to the house from our seasonal stream where we had planted Elderberry to provide fruit for the birds, I caught sight of a turkey hen lying low in the tall grass, a mere four feet from my pathway. Had her head not been raised at that moment, I would not have spotted her. Our eyes met. I said “hello,” but quickly looked away, and continued my walk back to the house, shaking my head in disbelief at my good fortune. What were the chances?
Talk about getting a rush of excitement over finding a Wild Turkey incubating eggs on my property. Wow!
Questions immediately formed in my mind: is her nest the source of eggs for the egg bandits? Is she being robbed while foraging away from her nest? What will happen next?
These questions, and more, will be answered in a sequel to this story: “Waltzing with Matilda.”
Stay tuned.
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